Mega Man X4
Mega Man X4 is often run using Zero. Routes 'Zero' 100% as Zero: #Magma Dragoon #Cyber Peacock #Split Mushroom #Web Spider - Last 4 Mavericks can be done in any order after Web Spider. Weakness pathway as Zero (may be more suitable for racing): #Magma Dragoon #Web Spider #Split Mushroom #Cyber Peacock 'X' 100% as X, current route: # Magma Dragoon # Web Spider # Storm Owl # Frost Walrus # Jet Stingray # Slash Beast # Re-visit Magma Dragoon (armor upgrade and heart) # Split Mushroom # Cyber Peacock Former route which does not get Nova Strike until after all eight Mavericks have been defeated: #Magma Dragoon #Web Spider #Frost Walrus #Split Mushroom #Cyber Peacock #Storm Owl #Jet Stingray #Slash Beast #Re-visit Magma Dragoon (armor upgrade and heart) Ultimate Armor X To obtain the Ultimate Armor (only available through this code): at the character select screen, press Circle twice, Left 6 times, then hold L1 and R2 until the first dialogue box appears. Then go to a capsule (Web Spider's is the quickest and easiest to get to). X should then have the full Ultimate Armor, which allows for an infinite number of Nova Strikes. If you input the code correctly, the secondary color of X should change from a light blue to a light purple. Any%: # Web Spider # Magma Dragoon # Split Mushroom # Cyber Peacock After Cyber Peacock, the Mavericks can be defeated in any order without hindering time. 100%: # Cyber Peacock # Magma Dragoon After Magma Dragoon, the Mavericks can be defeated in any order without hindering time. Boss Damage Table Notes (X): *For X-Buster, the first number is damage done with standard, uncharged shots; the second is damage done when the weapon is charged a bit; third number is damage done when it is fully charged. **A fully-charged X-Buster shot does the same damage in all of its forms (normal Charge Shot, Stock Shot, and Plasma Shot). **Any subsequent damage inflicted after the Plasma Shot's initial blast is 1 unit per hit. *For the eight Special Weapons, the first number is damage done when the weapon is used in normal fire; the second is when the weapon is used in its charged state. *For Special Weapons that are capable of striking more than once, damage values on this chart are listed according to how much a weapon inflicts per hit, not the total amount of damage done. *For Soul Body, the first number is damage done with the hologram, and the second number is damage inflicted with the buster shots fired from the solid hologram; the solid hologram itself cannot inflict damage to bosses. *For Tentoroid, it takes 9 units of damage when locked-on from an uncharged Aiming Laser, provided that X doesn't get hit while using it. Minimum damage is 1 unit per hit. When charged, the minimum damage is 2 units per hit. *For Generaid Core, it can take up to 9 units of damage when locked-on from an uncharged Aiming Laser, depending on when the weapon was fired and when the boss becomes vulnerable. Minimum damage is 1 unit per hit. When charged, the minimum damage is 8 units per hit. *For Storm Owl, he takes 9 units of damage when locked-on from an uncharged Aiming Laser. When charged, he can take up to 12 units of damage, depending on when the weapon was fired and the position of Storm Owl himself. Minimum damage is 1 unit per hit for both versions of Aiming Laser. *For Magma Dragoon, when riding on the Ride Armor in his stage, it is possible to bring the Ride Armor for the battle against him. The drilling stab inflicts 1 unit of damage against Dragoon; the overhead slash, jump slash, dash, and charge lance thrust all inflict 2 units of damage. *For Web Spider, hitting him directly with a normal Twin Slasher will only inflict 2 units of damage against him, and four units if Twin Slasher is charged. If Twin Slasher is used on the electric web that supports him, it will be cut, causing him to fall and take four units of damage twice for a total of 8 units of damage inflicted -- this method inflicts the same amount of damage regardless of which version of Twin Slasher is used. *For Colonel, damage values are exactly identical for both battles against him. *Credit goes to Twilight Man from MMKB for damage values. Notes (Zero): *Once Kuuenzan and Kuuenbu have been learned, it will replace Zero's mid-air slash for the remainder of the game -- the player will be unable to inflict damage with this method against Colonel, Iris, General, and all of Sigma's forms. **For this reason, damage values for the mid-air slash against the eight Mavericks were obtained when Split Mushroom has been fought last. *Minibosses such as Tentoroid and DG-42L do not have an invincibility period when struck, so Zero's slashes/techniques can deal a tremendous amount of damage as most of them can inflict multiple hits. *Strangely, the third slash of Zero's Z-Saber combo inflicts less damage on Eyezard than with the first two. *For Storm Owl, using Rakuhouha against him deals 2 units of damage for each energy bolt that hits him. *Credit goes to Twilight Man from MMKB for damage values. Techniques Saber Dash Cancel (SDC) It is possible to rapidly swing Zero's saber at any given rhythm using a technique known as SDC. On the PSx controller, with default settings, swing the saber with square and use circle to cancel the swing; then press square to swing again. Use this combination at various rhythms for quick-kills. Some players find the clawgrip controller technique useful. Big Damage on General If you properly time a primary slash with Zero while on arms, you can do massive damage. "Shield Break" on Storm Owl (X) There is a moment in Storm Owl's fight where he will have no invulnerability frames, but only if he uses his attack where he releases four Cyclones into certain positions then has them attack X and if you manage to hit Owl during a certain frame of animation. This is known as "Shield Break." Storm Owl will shoot four cyclones at a certain moment of the battle. After the last one he will make them go where X is. Also he will change his animation. If he's shot at any moment he will have a sort of bigger cyclone around him and if he's shot right before the last cyclone stopped moving, he'll have no invulnerability frames while he's surrounded by that bigger cyclone so you can continuously damage Owl without invulnerability frames for around two seconds. This can damage Owl for anything between half to more than three-quarters of his health, depending on weapon used (Stock shot or Plasma shot) and player skill. The easiest way is using the Plasma shot which can easily go through his cyclones, also it'll keep doing damage automatically. It's also possible with the Stock charge shot but it needs a good timing and, ideally, a pattern that doesn't guard him with a Cyclone (You can still do this trick if he guards himself with a Cyclone, but it requires you to damage-boost off the Cyclone then time the first shot perfectly. Even if this is done correctly, it will only do about one-third of his health in this situation). Another way, but the least effective, is shooting uncharged shots. A combination of one of the first two and the last one works best. This also occurs with the Aiming Laser and the Nova Strike. This is much easier to perform, takes more damage but it's only reasonable to do during the boss rush since Storm Owl's stage has the arm upgrade which is needed for the body upgrade - the Nova Strike. With this method, you want to hit Owl with Aiming Laser first then use Nova Strike right before Owl gets out of stun frames. Once Owl is out of stun frames, he'll have no invulnerability frames associated with Nova Strike hitting him so he'll take multiple Nova Strike hits rapidly. Depending on which direction he flies off after his stun frames and depending on the direction you use Nova Strike, this method can do anywhere from one-half - if the direction he flies is opposite of the direction of your Nova - to four-fifths - if the direction he flies is the same as the direction of your Nova - of his health. Miniboss Skip (Split Mushroom, X 100% only) The requirements for the quickest method of this skip are the arm upgrade, Rising Fire and Nova Strike (body armor upgrade). This skip avoids the trigger that locks the camera in place and forces you into the miniboss fight. In the picture below, the red line shows approximately where the camera lock happens. To do this skip, charge up Rising Fire, jump (do not dash-jump) off the sloped platform behind the floating platforms, release the charged Rising Fire, then Nova Strike. If done correctly, the miniboss will appear, but the camera will not pan over to the center of the platforms, allowing you to move over to the area exit, skipping the miniboss fight. There are a few alternative methods to this skip: * Lightning Web can be used to gain height instead of charged Rising Fire. Simply shoot a Web at the end of the sloped platform to gain height then Nova Strike over the camera-lock trigger. This method is useful if you happen to run out of Rising Fire in the room before the miniboss room. * If you are using the former route, which would not have Nova Strike at this point, you can use Lightning Web in place of charged Rising Fire and instead of using Nova Strike, you air dash over the camera-lock trigger. However, this method has a much smaller window for success than the first method listed. Notable Players: Axon, Stungun44, Romscout, Mike Uyama, Cremator Salonen, Qttsix, KirbyMastah Loading times differences with XCollection XC is known for having no lag in the SNES remakes and really low loading times in the PSX remakes. The X4 version has more or less 56 loading screens which last a variety of seconds from 1.5 to 3.5. On the other had, the XC version's are more uniform lasting in average 1.2275 seconds, so that might produce a big time difference from version to version. After measuring loading times from the PSX version from different places in the game, for example before the boss presentation, before the level, in between the areas, after the boss fight and after the weapon screen, and multiplying them by how many times they appear in the game, the total amount of time loss in loading screen calculated is 126.25 seconds (2.25 seconds in average per loading screen). In the XC version that amount is around 68.74 seconds. Assuming those calculations are exact and there's no other time difference between both versions, the XC version is faster than the PSX by 57.51 seconds which can be rounded to a minute. Still this isn't precise since loading times from different consoles may slightly vary. NOTE: It's been found that the load times between the PS2 version and GC version of XC are much different with the GC version having much faster load times. The exact time difference, however, has not been found. It has also been found that the load times on a PS2 console and a PS2 emulator are much different, with the PS2 emulator being closer to the GC version when it comes to load times. No differences have been found between load times on a GC console and GC emulator. Other differences with XCollection Aside from the load times, there aren't many differences between the XCollection versions and the original versions of MMX4. However, there are a few differences that must be pointed out. These differences are not necessarily on both the GC and PS2 versions of XC: GC and PS2: * The hostile gun ships (the blue ships) in Storm Owl's stage have no hitboxes while riding in the mech-suit so if you simply go right through the ships while in the mech-suit. The gun ships that are used as platforms, however, are perfectly fine. * The final Sigma theme starts the moment final Sigma appears on screen rather than after a textbox and audio dialogue. It resets itself after the dialogue is over GC: * To extend on final Sigma: Sigma will randomly not play an audio dialogue after the textbox and will go straight into the fight. It is not known what causes this. PS2: * To extend of final Sigma: Sigma will ''never ''play an audio dialogue after the textbox and will go straight into the fight. * Slash Beast's AI will sometimes bug out and he will simply roar at you multiple times in a row (known as "The Roar Glitch"). Due to the lack of audio dialogues on final Sigma (which removes roughly 3-5 seconds) and the Roar Glitch, which gives an incredible advantage for PS2 Zero runners, along with the fact that PS2 emulators have load times nearly equivalent to the GC XCollection version, the community has agreed to separate X4 into the original versions - PSX, Sega Saturn, PC - and the XCollection versions.